01.16.12 - SacAnime (Winter 2012)

Hmm, I tried writing this out and Blogger went stupid. :/ I wrote a long post too...It didn't even save it.

Anyway! Recently (as recent as yesterday) I was at SacAnime selling art with a friend (from work!), April.  It wasn't my first time selling my art but it was April's. 

Last year (as in ...in around August or something), I suggested that we share a table. I was surprised that she agreed. So... we made sure that there was a table for us before requesting the time off. At that time, it was October and we got a table for sure. We requested time off for those days. Like I said, this was in October. [October 29, 2011 to be exact]

I found out a few weeks ago that the days were rejected.

Um.... W. T. F ?! ?!

I turned it in early for a reason! To ensure I would get the time off! Usually if you don't hear anything within 2 weeks of turning in your form; it means it was approved. If it wasn't approved, the forms would be returned to use and it would say why. 

The reason my days were denied was because it was Inventory week. But... we don't do inventory on the weekends! It made absolutely NO sense! And none of the supervisors' schedules were changed!

Anyway, I decided that I needed a plan to get at least Friday and Saturday off. The only thing I could think of was to switch schedules with people since I didn't have those days off...

April, meanwhile, was freaking out. She was stressing about if I wasn't going to be there, what she was going to do :( I felt so bad. Phillip switched with me for Friday [I took his Friday day off; but I'd have to work for his Sunday (yesterday)]. Sandy was the only one I could ask for Saturday...but she couldn't. :/  *sigh*

At least I got Friday off. After stressing over other things [will post about tomorrow?], I decided that on Saturday, I was going to be at SacAnime for most of the day and then go to work late (half my shift; since i have a closing shift). 

FRIDAY

Anyway, the plan on Friday was to meet up at the parking lot at around 9AM. Lucky me! I was seriously lucky! I parked directly IN FRONT of the Artist's Alley. Mwahhahahahahahahaahha! 

Once April arrived, we went to our table and noticed we only had one chair. Umm...what? O_o; Our neighbor's my left side were the people from Legends of Heroes & Villains and the ones on our right side were... peoples' names I can't find -_-; [Why aren't they on the SacAnime site?]. Anyway!... The one chair thing remained that way [from 9 am ] until 5pm. Umm...what?! You heard right! We had to take chairs from the people that haven't arrived that day. O_o;;

This is how our table looked after we decided on a set up. Our neighbors are setting things up... we got 1/2 of a table... lol

Since SacAnime seemed to cater to mostly teens and pre-teens...it wasn't busy until around 4pm :/ Yes, we were there from 9am until 4pm. By then, we started getting commissions. We were planning on doing on the spot chibi portraits. But we ended up doing on the stop chibi commissions... We ended up getting about 7 within an hour O_O;; We had to actually stop taking commissions.

I like how they kicked out the artists before we were scheduled to leave. The program says that the Artists' Alley closes at 7. They were kicking us out at 6pm! O_o; Though, honestly, I've been to their cons for a few years and it happens all the time. :/ Which I find not very fair. [Though, I hear rumors that it was the hotel management that was kicking out all the vendor rooms/artists' alley/gaming rooms earlier :/]

 There was a lot of down time on Friday. (Like I said, everyone arrived at around 4pm) So I did some drawings. I could only draw SailorMoon characters off the top of my head [I can draw Chun-Li off the top of my head too]... and that's what I did. I drew SailorMoon. I drew her on an ATC. 

This SailorMars drawing was done a little before the crowds starting coming in. X_x; I started drawing it as a regular drawing but then I was like "what the hell!" and drew SailorMars. lol! I put up on display and got many compliments on it.

I was sad I couldn't make it to ANY of the DELETER workshops. I got to talk to a few people that requested chibis about the workshop. It seemed pretty cool. :) <--jealous LOL

Anyway, After we finished the latest chibi commission; and they kicked us out... we dropped off our stuff in our cars and wandered around the con in the dark. We were looking for the people that asked commissions from us. So we were holding onto their drawings as we wandered around.... but we didn't find them.

SATURDAY

So many problems! I promised to be there at 9am. But the parents never left the house. (they didn't know I was going... they thought I was working <--more on that later) I kept waiting and I kept texting April and she was getting nervous :( By 10:15 AM, I was like SCREW IT! I have a friend in need! I lied to the mom "Someone just called me and told me to work an earlier shift" X_x; And I ran off and got there at around 11 AM. I couldn't find parking. Parking over there is RIDICULOUS!!!! X_x;;;

I fought my way into the room and I was like HOLY HECK! No wonder she was freaking out, there's a million people here!!! X_x;;; I set up quickstyle and I finished up the commissions (coloring) from yesterday. We took a lot more...I even got to use my SQUAREUP app (for credit cards). <--I couldn't figure out how to slide the card, but I got to punch it in manually. Except I just found out that if you type it manually, it charges you $0.15 + the fee that they already charge you. X_x; So! I need to figure out how that thingy works LOL

We ended up being super busy! We never left our table! I had a few minutes of down time. Apparently, we were racing to see who'd catch up to who. Lol! She was doing the pencils and inks...if she was extremely behind, I'd ink. But I did the coloring. Coloring doesn't take that long... :P

We had said that we were going to do chibi portraits but we only did ONE XD. Everything else was chibi requests :D We brought our phone chargers, cuz luckily we were right in front of an outlet MWAHAHAHAHAHA! 

Here's one of the chibis we were most proud of. Someone requested Goury and Lina Inverse from Slayers. I took this pic with my phone (I didn't feel like whipping out my digital camera). I wasn't even able to vlog about the con X_x; It was quite busy.

We had to stop taking commissions at around 5pm. By 530; we were done. YAY! Which is good because they kicked us out at 6 again -_-;. For 30 minutes, we spent it splitting up the $ we made on Friday and Saturday. I was sad I couldn't help her on Sunday.

Oh, also, at 1pm... I had to call in sick to work. Honestly, I was sick. I had planned on going for a half shift but I couldn't because we got extremely busy AND I wasn't feeling too hot. [caught a cold AND the marker fumes were making me nauseous] Plus, I told the parents I didn't have a closing shift @__@; so... that kinda.. you know, messed it all up. Lol.

After we divided our money, we kinda hung around until they officially kicked us out ;P We went our separate ways (since we parked super far from each other, unlike Friday ;___; )

I hear that SacAnime might be held at CALEXPO next year. Well, they'd better!!!!! Jeezus! The hotel staff hates us and the con is getting bigger and bigger! It's impossible to park!

The last time I was at the convention was a summer one... My brother went with me. It was cuz Mari Ijima of Macross fame was there! I got an autograph from her on my iPod, my bro got one on his Minmei drawing... Anyway, it took us an hour to find parking! And that's driving around in CIRCLES! X_x; I hear people had to park at COSTCO which is about 10 minutes away walking distance. :/ 

Umm yeah.... April kinda wants to do it again. Lol. I don't know if I do O_o; But, I admit that I liked her chibis more than Betsy's. April had fun doing hers and she took her time which made it look nicer. Betsy's were kinda boring and plain and she did them fast so... it was more about quantity for her than quality. [I guess?] It's also why I seemed to have taken my time in coloring. 

When I colored Betsy's chibis, I'd put a ton of detail in the hair (what I'm known to do) and everything else is just flat base colors. For April's I tried to color them as best as I could. Though, there were times when I did do the flat coloring because we had so many X_x; we both were freaking out. Lol...

I was glad that my Neopikos were working! I don't know why they didn't work on her other drawing... but they worked for these! That's good because I ended up using mostly the Neopikos. ^_^; Since I had a huge variety of colors (72 pack)